Indian college asked student to use Google Cloud, now he gets bill of almost Rs 1 lakh
A student recently shared his story on Reddit. The student claimed that his college had asked him to use Google Cloud for a project. After this the student got a bill of about Rs 1 lakh.
College projects can be tiring. Students usually stay up late for hours trying to meet deadlines. Now, often, college assignments have only marginal costs, such as stationery expenses. However, a student received a bill of nearly Rs 1,00,000 from Google after using the company’s cloud platform.
The student, who goes by the online persona u/conceptpretty7717, shared his entire ordeal on the subreddit r/developersindia. The real name of the person is Girish Naik.
According to Girish, his college mandated the use of Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Although he used the service for assigned projects, he never did anything more than that. He said, “My college asked us to create a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account last semester and asked us to add a billing method for lab work. I never used anything other than what they told us.”
Now, Girish Naik seems to be bombarded with a bill of Rs 1,00,000 from Google for using its cloud service. “Now I am suddenly getting emails saying I owe Rs 98,940.76,” he said. The matter seems to be escalating to such an extent that American collection agencies have also started sending them notices. “A US-based collection agency (ABC Omega) has been emailing me with ‘past due balance’ notices. Google Payments emails also say my payment method has failed,” Naik said.
The user shared screenshots of the email along with the Google Cloud payments page, which displayed the exact amount.
Student claims college is not responding after receiving bill of Rs 98,480
Attempts to contact the college for support have so far been unsuccessful. “My college is not responding at all,” the student wrote. This has made Naik more worried about this issue. Although he did not reveal the name of the college. Eventually, Girish Naik decided to ask Reddit for help. He added, “Has anyone dealt with this? Is this legitimate? Am I actually liable for these charges, or is this a GCP billing glitch? What’s the best way to dispute this?”
Redditors urge students to ask Google for a discount
The comments section on Naik’s post was filled with suggestions. Many users advised them to contact Google and ask for a discount. One user also claimed that they had seen similar instances with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the past. “Try talking to support and explaining the situation. I know AWS usually waives large fees for students. Just be careful in the future,” the person wrote.
On the other hand, some Redditors speculated on the reason for such a huge bill. One person replied, “This is a rookie mistake from some service that it forgot to delete and is probably still running.” The man stressed that such mistakes were not unusual. “This day of reckoning is quite common for every developer who interacts with the cloud,” he added.
